


wrong place, wrong time

by milkdaze (flowerstems)



Series: seasons change & people hope [3]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Body Horror, Horror, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-14 00:20:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7144523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerstems/pseuds/milkdaze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he opens his eyes he can barely see. It’s quiet, so quiet he can hear himself breathe, shallow puffs of air in and out. It hurts, maybe he twisted too much in his sleep. It’s like waking up from a nightmare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	wrong place, wrong time

When Oliver answers the door he expects it to be a surprise visit from Laurel or Iris, maybe a delivery boy with a package he doesn't remember anyone ordering. Instead he sees Barry standing there, arms lifelessly dangling at his sides. He looks vapid and plastic in a way Barry never does and Oliver almost closes the door on him. That is obviously not Barry.

 

“Aren’t you going to let me in?” But that's Barry’s voice, sounding hollow and impatient. Oliver wants to ask why he’s home early; Barry just called an hour ago to say he's working a tough case and can't be back until later tonight. It’s mid-afternoon; Oliver steps aside and almost knocks over the vase filled with yesterday’s sunflowers because he's suddenly struck with fear, something cold skittering up and down his spine telling him this is all kinds of wrong. Whoever this is, they aren't Barry—why would anyone impersonate Barry?

 

How can anyone impersonate someone so well and so poorly all at once?

 

Oliver closes the door when the man walks in and leans on it, carefully locking it before sending Barry a message asking him about work.

 

The man in front of him stands listlessly, looking around the house like it's something both unfamiliar and uninteresting. Who the hell is this? Oliver busies his hands with rearranging the sunflowers, straightening a few already straight picture frames while the man walks into the kitchen and Oliver’s phone vibrates with a message from Barry; it's a string of apologies about having to come home late and being busier than he'd expected.

 

Oliver takes a deep breath and sends one last message before muting his phone and hiding it on himself.

 

Today was supposed to be a quiet, boring day. He’d spend it doing whatever came to mind and when Barry came home, no matter the time, Oliver would welcome him back. He’d make sure Barry showered and ate then drag him to bed instead of letting him fall asleep on the couch. The next day Barry would have the day off; they'd spend their fifth anniversary together and Oliver would finally, _finally,_ propose. It’ll be goddamn romantic otherwise Oliver will never forgive himself. He fingers the ring in his pocket and tries to remember what he'd say: he’d tell Barry that he makes Oliver want to be the best kind of person; he makes Oliver want to be kind and forgiving, to trust in people, to become the best version of himself, the only version that could possibly be worthy of Barry. He tries to remember how he’d say it, which knee he'd get down on—

 

The man walks out from the living room—it's likely he's scanned the entire house by now—wearing a smile that's so _Barry_ Oliver would fall for it if only it reached his eyes. “You haven't welcomed me home yet.”

 

Whoever this is, they aren’t Barry; only Barry gets a ‘welcome home’. “How was your day?” he asks instead because despite wanting nothing more than to punch this imposter square in the jaw and kick his ass out of his and Barry’s home, the look in his eyes _terrify_ Oliver. There’s wickedness like he's never wanted to see in those earthy eyes and it makes him want to throw up. He doesn't move, he hardly wants to speak.

 

He steps into Oliver’s personal space, touches his jaw like it's something he'd do every day, and Oliver can feel his own heartbeat in his wrists, a staccato rhythm that hurts his chest. It’s oddly cold even though Oliver can feel the sweat sliding along his neck. He thinks he should pretend to think this man is his Barry, but he's so terrified, so revolted, he doesn't move at all.

 

It dawns on him suddenly: he has made the worst decision of all possible decisions and he wonders if this debilitating fear is what a deer feels the moment it realises it's being hunted.

 

The man smiles at him. A wide, unnatural smile that twists his love’s face into something horrid, bares jagged teeth stained with blood and Oliver doesn't know why he didn't smell copper before.

 

The moment Oliver grabs for the glass vase the man lunges at him and the vase falls over and shatters, sunflowers crumpled and beheaded and scattering across the floor. Some petals are beautifully bright, yellow still, and others are spattered or drenched in red. Oliver feels so cold and he chokes on a mouthful of blood. The pain only comes when he looks down and sees a large blade cutting into him, blood slowly rolling out of him and pooling at his feet, hot and sticky and he can’t scream because there’s so much blood in his mouth, his throat.

 

It’s so hard to see, his vision blurs and blurs but he can see the man grinning still, Barry grinning still, and his arm is angled sharp. It’s pale and twisted and metal from the elbow down, splitting and curving into the bloody blade buried in Oliver’s stomach. Oliver tries to grab it and pull it out, hands and fingers cutting like paper on its sharpness and the man laughs in Barry’s melody but it’s dissonant, unnatural. Oliver coughs up more blood and it runs down his neck, soaks into his shirt.

 

“To think you’d have lived longer if you’d just played ignorant,” he sneers, licking his lips, and Oliver has nothing to say. “Hardly matters now,” and then there a lines running across Barry’s face, seams that split and unravel like cloth. Its head seems to open up, sinew and muscles stretching, tearing, until it blooms like a horrific flower, all eyes and teeth in its rubied petals, and Oliver can’t even scream at it. Its eyes all roll and turn immediately, all fixated on Oliver, and the blade twists, opens the wound wider until blood is pouring out of him and he’s only on his feet because the blade is holding him up. It swings its arm, picks Oliver up, gravity pulling him down, and it flings Oliver into the kitchen, blood streaking the wall and splattering when he hits the counter and slumps against it.

 

Everything hurts, _everything;_ it’s so vivid he can’t move, can’t think. Breathing hurts, everything is red and cold, and he can barely see but he knows their home is destroyed. Nightmarish. He tries to look at his hands; they’re skinned, bleeding and raw, and they’re covering his stomach because he knows if he moves them _s o m e t h i n g_ is going to fall out, something he needs to stay inside. Don’t come home, don’t come home. Please, listen, just this once.

 

It stands still for the while, looking at the scattered flowers, the blood staining the floor and streaking the walls, Oliver bleeding out in the kitchen. It touches something on the end table beside the door—the pictures, Oliver realises—then it walks over, grin still in place. Oliver can’t keep his eyes open anymore, it hurts, he can’t see much anyway.

 

“This face is beautiful,” it says and Oliver can hear it closer, voice unnatural and painful to hear, “just imagine when he comes home and you open the door? And then when he walks in and sees you dead, here,” it pokes Oliver’s chest with the blade and when Oliver realises what it means his eyes open, burning and unseeing, and it laughs at him. “Yes, perfect! Think about that while I help myself to dinner.” Oliver feels hands around his ankles and they pull him, drag him across the floor, and in an instant of pain that makes his heart stop it tears off his leg.

 

There’s the sound of bone crunching, something slurping and splattering and Oliver passes out.

 

When he opens his eyes he can barely see. It’s quiet, so quiet he can hear himself breathe, shallow puffs of air in and out. It hurts, maybe he twisted too much in his sleep. It’s like waking up from a nightmare. Yes, that’s it; he tips his head back and instead of the bed’s headboard he sees the side of the counter covered in his blood and his eyes burn.

 

Fuck.

 

He tries to move, tries to pull himself up, maybe if he could get his legs to work with him—he looks down and there’s something missing. Right.

 

Right.

 

Oliver screams; it’s weak and strangled, bubbling up through blood, he can barely hear it himself. A hand grabs his leg, drags him again and he scrabbles at the floor, the doorjamb, anything, but it keeps pulling him and pulling him over to the front door.

 

“Shh, listen,” it says as it shoves its hand over Oliver’s mouth so he can’t scream and it sounds like him. It sounds like Oliver and that means it must look like Oliver and Oliver bites its hand, blood filling his mouth anew and it merely laughs with his voice, standing behind the door. Oliver can hear keys, little metallic sounds on the other side of the door as it unlocks. He can hear Barry stop humming.

 

Despair is the heaviest feeling.

 

“Guess who’s home early,” and Oliver can see his own face, razor smile distorting it like it did Barry’s and Oliver screams, kicks at it and it grabs his leg, head bursting and blooming grotesquely before biting off his ankle. It eats his leg chunk by chunk and Oliver screams and can’t feel anything and the door swings open, Barry rushing in and skidding in a congealed pool of Oliver’s blood.

 

Barry stares down at him, expression the most broken and horrified thing Oliver has ever seen, and all Oliver can think is: this is it, this is how it ends. He can’t do anything about it and he fucking hates this so much.

 

Its jaws close down on his thigh like a candy wrapper and Oliver stretches an arm out, trying to push Barry back out the door but Barry seems frozen in place, unwilling or unable to move. All this pain and Oliver can still feel his heart break.

 

  
“I told you not to come home.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was just supposed to be a short horror thing because the ~side characters~ are always killed off and we think eh okay. NO. NOT OKAY. Feel some of their pain. This ended up being heavily influenced by the manga/anime ‘Parasyte’. If you like horror and/or you like alien monsters then you’re gonna love Parasyte wink wink.


End file.
